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Good Worker Etiquette: Things You Should Do No Matter How Crappy Your Job Is

I don’t care how overworked you are, you can at least make the effort. Source: Firstcall

Regardless of your feelings toward your job, there are just some lines you don’t cross. I understand the need to buck the system in the face of injustice, but you have to at least be considerate of the other people stuck in the same boat as you; i.e. your coworkers.

To that end, I’ve decided to construct a short list (ever notice how good I am at those) of faux pas to be avoided in the work place and why.

Avoid In-fighting with co-workers

It’s unavoidable. You’re going to come across someone that just rubs you the wrong way at work. Maybe they’re under educated, ignorant, and refuse to learn. Maybe they’re the type that like to tease co-workers for laughs.

The fact of the matter is this; neither of you are there to make friends, you’re there to get a job done and you won’t be able to do that if you’re both busy at each others throats.

If you have a problem with someone, unless it’s a serious issue like harassment or violence, just let the twit continue their childish antics. If it becomes an issue, then you have the right to raise a stink and inform your supervisor. The more time you waste fighting over mundane things, the more slack the other people you work with have to pick up for the both of you.

Everything Is Everyone’s Job

Have you ever heard the advice that you should specify a person to call for help in an emergency instead of simply saying, “Someone,, get help?” The reason for that is that people like to assume that someone else will do it instead of them and help comes to late

The same mentality exists in the workplace; everyone likes to think that something will be taken care of by a co-worker. As a result, the job never gets done.

If you’re a supervisor or otherwise in a position of authority, designate people to take care of tasks. This will increase the likelihood of it getting done as well as make it easier to find the people not doing their share of work.

If you’re an employee and you see something that needs doing, take charge and do it. It will make things go smoother later on and make you look good in the eyes of your superiors.

This isn’t to say that you should be constantly doing favors for others when you know that they were the ones charged to do it. It just means that if you have spare time between your tasks and notice something that needs doing, you should do it to help others stay on top of things.

Even Crappy Jobs Deserve a Two Week Notice

So, you’ve finally found a job you think you’ll enjoy. That’s great for you, but that will screw up things for you co-workers if they don’t know ahead of time.

The reason the “Two Week Notice” rule stands in most places is so that schedules can be worked around being short a person and so that employers can start looking for new hires to make life easier for everyone.

Ditching a job with no prior warning is a warning sign to other employers that you’ll back stab them and make life miserable for them the first chance you get. So be sure to provide a window of time between telling them you’re going to quit and actually quitting.